Author of the #1 best-seller The Book of Negroes, Lawrence Hill is a writer of immense talent-and his literary reputation grows with each new work. Canadian Langston Cane V finds his writing career (and, indeed, his life) in stasis until inspired by his mentor to write about an ancestor who purportedly died fighting alongside John Brown at Harpers Ferry. Traveling to Baltimore, the latter-day Cane delves into history and in so doing awakens to new possibilities. “A remarkable achievement.”-Joyce Carol Oates

One of Canada’s most celebrated author’s debut novel for young readers

Beatrice, a young girl of uncertain age, wakes up all alone in a tree house in the forest. How did she arrive in this cozy dwelling, stocked carefully with bookshelves and oatmeal accoutrements? And who has been leaving a trail of clues, composed in delicate purple handwriting?

So begins the adventure of a brave and resilient Black girl’s search for identity and healing in bestselling author Lawrence Hill’s middle-grade debut. Though Beatrice cannot recall how or why she arrived in the magical forest of Argilia–where every conceivable fish, bird, mammal and reptile coexist, and any creature with a beating heart can communicate with any other–something within tells her that beyond this forest is a family that is waiting anxiously for her return.

Just outside her tree-house door lives Beatrice’s most unlikely ally, the enormous and mercurial King Crocodile Croc Harry, who just may have a secret of his own. As they form an unusual truce and work toward their common goal, Beatrice and Croc Harry will learn more about their forest home than they ever could have imagined. And what they learn about themselves may destroy Beatrice’s chances of returning home forever.

Aminata Diallo (“an amazing literary creation,” Literary Review of Canada) is the beguil­ing heroine of Lawrence Hill’s SOMEONE KNOWS MY NAME. In it, Hill exquisitely imagines the tale of an eighteenth-century woman’s life, spanning six decades and three continents. The fascinating story that Hill tells is a work of the soul and the imagination. Aminata is a character who will stir listeners, from her kid­napping from Africa through her journeys back and forth across the ocean.

Enslaved on a South Carolina plantation, Aminata works in the indigo fields and as a mid­wife. When she is bought by an entrepreneur from Charleston, she is torn from friends and family. The chaos of the Revolutionary War allows her to escape. In British-held Manhattan, she helps pen the Book of Negroes, a list of blacks rewarded for wartime service to the King with safe passage to Nova Scotia. During her travels in Canada, Sierra Leone, and England, Aminata strives for her free­dom and that of her people–even when it comes at a price.

In this captivating novel, Hill portrays one woman’s remarkable spirit and strength in the face of adversity, and he brings to life crucial and little-known chapters in world history.

Keita Ali has nothing: no bank account, no papers, no legal identity. A runner, he has fled home– a brutal dictatorship that produces the world’ s fastest marathoners– to live as an illegal refugee in a wealthy western nation, surviving on winnings from local races. But the government is cracking down on illegal immigrants, so Keita– who will be executed if he is deported to his homeland– goes underground. Now, a series of crises call for him to earn quick money: an unscrupulous businessman targets him, a serious health problem erupts, and, most troublingly, officials in Keita’ s native country kidnap his sister, threatening to execute her unless he pays a ransom. As Keita struggles to resolve these problems, he discovers a troubling political connection between his native and his adopted country. The Illegal is a rich, riveting novel that weaves a complex moral and psychological web.